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Semi-retired psychologist shares his experience.

Teaching Children with Autism

Teaching Children with Autism

Imagine that your child is born with a neurological condition that interferes with his ability to learn to communicate and get along with people – currently about one in every 68 children. Imagine that there is a treatment that will give him a good chance to overcome most of this difficulty, but that it will cost about $100,000. Imagine that the government has funded a program to provide this treatment.

Imagine that your child is three years old before receiving a diagnosis, after which he is put on a wait list for this treatment. Imagine that you wait for 2-4 years before a space becomes available for him in the program. He is now 5-7 years old.

Now imagine that the government decides that the program is likely to be most effective with younger children, and that children five years of age or older will no longer be accepted for this treatment.

Imagine that all of these children who are no longer eligible for this treatment will, instead, be entering the school system, which is not prepared to deal with them. Imagine how much disruption this will bring to the lives of their teachers and classmates. Imagine what it is going to cost the schools to cope with this disruption.

Imagine that they will not be able to keep up and that most of them will become a burden on society when they reach adulthood. Imagine that it will cost taxpayers between $1.5-2.5 million dollars to provide lifelong support for each of these individuals.